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| The view that material conditions (usually economic and technological factors) play the central role in determining social stability and change. |
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| Theories of cumulative sociocultural change that generally hold that human societies move from simple to complex forms of organization. |
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| The pattern of human relationships formed by human groups and institutions within a given society. |
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| A multi-dimensional phenomenon in which populations are ranked along various dimensions such as occupation, education, property, racial or ethnic status, age, and gender. Each of these dimensions is a class system. |
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| The technology and the practices employed for expanding or limiting basic subsistence production, especially the production of food and other forms of energy. |
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| An id-like nature that is focused on the individual satisfaction of all wants and desires; the first and “lower” part of Durkheim’s dual conception of human nature. |
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| Durkheim’s idea that human beings have a dual nature, the angel and the beast, with the beast being the stronger of the two. |
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| Freud’s term for the part of the self that represents human drives such as sexuality and hunger. |
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| Common beliefs and values that guide human behaviour. |
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| A structural condition in which social norms are weak or conflicting. |
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| Social respect accorded to individuals or groups because of the status of their position. |
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| A genetically fixed pattern of complex behaviour (that is, behaviour that goes beyond reflex) that appears in all normal animals within a given species. |
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| Bio-Psychological Constants |
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| Marvin Harris’s four predispositions or drives that are shared by all humans. |
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| The scientific study of human population, including size, growth, movement, density, and composition. |
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| The average number of live-born children produced by women of childbearing age in a particular society. |
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| Malthus’s term for measures and activities by which the life span of an existing human being is shortened in some way. |
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| Malthus’s term for measures and activities in which people attempt to prevent births in some manner. |
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| Cost-benefit Decision Making |
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| Decision making based on the analysis and weighing of the costs and benefits of the decision. |
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| The application of ever expanding technology and labour techniques to increase productivity. |
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| The tendency of bureaucracies to refine their procedures to attain their goals ever more efficiently. |
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| Weber's term for the process by which modes of precise calculation based on observation and reason increasingly dominate the social world. |
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| One of Merton’s adaptations in Anomie Theory (or Stress Theory). It is characterized by individuals who have accepted the culturally approved goal, but have not fully internalized the culturally approved means to attain this goal. The individual thereby adopts a different (and often deviant) method for attaining the goal. |
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| Close interpersonal relations between family members (such as parents and children), close friends, or lovers. These bonds develop through mutual interaction and are characterized by such emotions as affection, trust, and feelings of attachment. |
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